Aprilis

Aprilis or mensis Aprilis (April) was the fourth month of the ancient Roman calendar, following Martius (March) and preceding Maius (May). On the oldest Roman calendar that had begun with March, Aprilis was the second of ten months in the year. April had 30 days on calendars of the Roman Republic, with a day added to the month during the reform in the mid-40s BC that produced the Julian calendar.

April was marked by a series of festivals devoted to aspects of rural life, since it was a busy month for farmers. As Rome became more urbanized, the significance of some ceremonies expanded, notably the Parilia, an archaic pastoral festival celebrated as the "birthday" (dies natalis) or founding day of Rome. The month was generally preoccupied with deities who were female or ambiguous in gender, opening with the Feast of Venus on the Kalends.

The Romans thought that the name Aprilis derived from aperio, aperire, apertus, a verb meaning "to open". The Fasti Praenestini offered the expanded explanation that "fruits and flowers and animals and seas and lands do open".

Some antiquarians, as well as Ovid in his poem on the Roman calendar, provide an alternate derivation from Aphrodite, the Greek counterpart of Venus whose festival began the month. Apru might be derived from the conjectured Etruscan form of the name, which would be Aprodita, but among the Etruscans, the month was called Cabreas. Some modern linguists derive Aprilis from Etruscan Ampile or Amphile, based on a medieval gloss, conjecturing an origin in the Thessalian month name Aphrios. An Indo-European origin has also been proposed, related to Sanskrit áparah and Latin alter, "the other of two", referring to its original position as the second month of the year.Varro and Cincius both reject the connection of the name to Aphrodite, and the common Roman derivation from aperio may be the correct one.

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